CANNES JOURNAL: 'Marie Antoinette': Best or Worst of Times?; Under the Spell Of Royal Rituals

By MANOHLA DARGIS

Published: May 25, 2006

Though no one called for the filmmaker's head, ''Marie Antoinette,'' Sofia Coppola's sympathetic account of the life and hard-partying times of the ill-fated queen, filled the theater with lusty boos and smatterings of applause after its first press screening on Wednesday. History remembers the queen for her wastrel ways, indifference to human suffering (''Let them eat cake'') and death by guillotine, but Ms. Coppola's period film, which is playing in competition, conceives of her as something of a poor little rich girl, a kind of Paris Hilton of the House of Bourbon.

Kirsten Dunst stars as the Austrian princess who was just 14 when she arrived in the French court at Versailles in 1770, as part of an alliance between her mother, the powerful Maria Theresa of Austria, and the French king, the grandfather of her betrothed, the future Louis XVI (the unlikely Jason Schwartzman, in a bit of gag casting).

Her youth and apparent ignorance locked the future queen in a welter of self-indulgence from which she had no reason to escape, or so Ms. Coppola vainly tries to suggest. From the moment Marie Antoinette arrives in France, after being literally stripped bare of her Austrian possessions, she is trussed up in silks and satins, feathers and furs, and restrained by the rituals of court life, as much prisoner as princess.

This is Ms. Coppola's one idea, and it isn't enough. Although early scenes of Marie Antoinette submitting to protocol -- if she wants a glass of water, one servant announces her request and another fulfills it -- do make her point, it soon becomes clear that the director is herself bewitched by these rituals, which she repeats again and again. The princess lived in a bubble, and it's from inside that bubble Ms. Coppola tells her story. Thus, despite some lines about the American Revolution, which is helping drain the king's coffers and starve his people, Ms. Coppola ignores what's best about Marie Antoinette's story.

She doesn't seem to realize that what made this spoiled, rotten woman worthy of attention weren't her garden parties and fur-lined shoes, but the role she played in a bloody historical convulsion.

Ms. Coppola has an embarrassment of cinematic riches to play with, including the real Versailles, where Marie Antoinette lived most of her short adult life. With the help of the cinematographer Lance Acord and the production designer KK Barrett, both of whom worked on Ms. Coppola's last film, ''Lost in Translation,'' and the costume designer Milena Canonero, who worked on ''Barry Lyndon,'' she creates an opulent proto-Euro Disney cum rave where royals are really just 24-hour party people, full of fun and lots of cake. Soon after arriving at court Marie Antoinette asks a lady-in-waiting (Judy Davis in full twitch), ''Isn't all this kind of ridiculous?'' ''This, madam,'' the woman answers haughtily, ''is Versailles.'' But truly, madam, this is Hollywood.

Photos: Sofia Coppola, the director of ''Marie Antoinette,'' at Cannes. (Photo by Eric Gaillard/Reuters); Kirsten Dunst at court, as the title character in ''Marie Antoinette.'' (Photo by Leigh Johnson)